Life Is Worth Living

Hello Folks,

Last Friday, a gentleman committed suicide not far from where I live. He strategically suspended himself on a neem tree by the roadside as his approach of bowing out of the world.  Folks who passed the Haatso- Atomic Down road on rainy Friday morning were greeted with vinegary scene. They sang his life, heaped hexes on him and as usual, quizzed why he would commit such an abhorrent act. Could it be that he was impotent or had contracted HIV? Was life knocking him so bleakly that he had to end this way? Was he very depressed or he couldn’t just stand the heat that life is generating? My dear, I am as intrigued as you are.

Uncalculatedly, I had read about Emile Durkheim (1859-1916), a French Sociologist who wrote on suicide that week. Durkheim in his book Suicide compared data on suicide from different countries, religion, and different periods of history. There were variations within religions as well as between religions, and between married and unmarried people and the like. He concluded that, suicide was a social fact because different social environments exert amounts of pressure on individual thus promoting certain kinds of behaviour and inhibiting others. Durkheim believed that, the more an individual is integrated into intimate social groups, the lower the probability that he or she would commit suicide.

This ill-starred situation brings my mind back on well noted Hollywood director, Tony Scott, 68, who directed films such Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II and Enemy of the State who plunged to death from the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Los Angeles after penning a suicide note in August 2012. One will question why a man of calibre, and with assets, estates, fame, family, the pass to all Hollywood ritzy- glitzy and upscale events and if Tony Scott had a thing for skirts, am certain, his boudoir would be graced with  different shades of  mistresses every night would end his life so pathetically?

Folks, having all the fame, wealth, off-the chain cars, connections, women, men, designer dresses, assets, estates and host of others does not warrant happiness and peace of mind.  Proverbs 10: 22 says “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it”. The world we are breathing in now is plagued with consumerism and materialism. And we are in swiftness, hunting untiringly after them. Take a critical look around and you will realize that we are all in competition with one another. Where are the love, kindness, family, compassion, humility, godliness, alms giving, and other virtues that fasten us together and make us dependent as humans?

Professor Martin Owusu once said at a lecture. “IN LIFE, SOMEONE IS GREATER OR LESSER THAN YOU ARE”.  Without doubt, someone is more affluent than you. Someone is more gorgeous than you are. Someone is shoddier than you are or more disheartened than you are, and such is la vie. No matter how bad the state of affairs of the deceased was, someone’s predicament is, was, and will be worse than his.

When you look at yourself, you know you don’t have anything or reach where you want to be in life. You know very well that you are struggling to make ends meet. Yet, there are haters everywhere. People are covetous and green-eyed of things that you are not even content with and you ask yourself over and over again; what do I have that all eyes are on me? Its simple folks!  Someone wish to be precisely like you.

Folks, you need God more than ever before. Not religion nor chasing after diverse  word-of -God- less, and recognition-seeking-hunger-traumatized pastors for “zomi oil” or for red, green, burgundy, turquoise and indigo hues of anointed oil and florida water . I am talking about you having an intimacy with God. Communing with the Maker of life to stabilize you. The only one who can give you peace when storms of life thump you to the core. It is the Maker alone who assures you to stand still and know that he is GOD, gives you JOY and not happiness (joy and happiness are different) in the midst of depression, angst, shame, disillusionments, frustration, divorce, childless, mockery, stagnation, afflictions, reproach, indebtedness, heaviness, failure and on and on. 

Can you stay glued to God and trust him when all the odds of life are gazing at you? Can you confidently say it is well with you when you are at the cusp of suicide or disintegration? Folks, God comforts us in Daniel 11:32 that “but the people that do KNOW their God shall be STRONG, and do EXPLOITS”.  The “exploits” the word of God is talking about is not you assembling cars with your bare hands or inventing new technologies (which are possible). Have you ever wondered how you survived a day or week or month with only GHc10 or GHc5 in your wallet and God miraculously saw you through? Have you ever been bombarded with bills, rents, struggling career, schools fees, life-threatening medical conditions, family issues and you tossed over and over in bed at night, not knowing who to go to or who to call on and unexpectedly God opened channels for you and you take a step back and asked how did I passed through all without meltdown? And that is doing “exploits” and being “strong”. The so called “little things” God help you to come out heroically without losing all the bolts and screws in your head.

Folks, you know the hard truth, the world is getting more sophiscated, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, people are more distressed and exasperated than before, the economy does not favour some of us, people are wailing in their rooms and the confusion of life continues.  Candidly, the world will not pause for you to catch with up. So folks, you need to pick out which of the TENTS you desire to pitch in. CONTENT or DISCONTENT?  

 Psalm 127:1-2 says “Except the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep”.

The formula is simple. Know your GOD and cleave to his unfailing word! And he will sail you through all the acts and scenes of life.

Let the month of May be filled with God’s grace, abundance and protection for you and your loved ones.

Million kisses and hugs to you all!!

Deli.ciouzly Yours,

Akosua